Subtitle: Carbon copies of carbon copies
Imitating success is a great way to learn and implement a proven formula to better ensure your chances of reaching goals, especially if you’re breaking into a market and still have a learning curve to encompass. There are experts in every field who you can emulate and benefit from by learning from their mistakes and capitalize from their accomplishments. However, by continuing along this path of secondhand originality you will not blaze a path of your own or have much innovation by following the footsteps of others.
At some point, the field that you are in will demand fresh proposals and bold ideas as the status quo grows commonplace and stagnates. To meet these needs one must churn out innovative contributions and constantly thread fine lines of speculation as one’s proposals are brought to market. But, how is this done? How does one find newness?
Sometimes this requires stepping back from your field and taking an inventory of what others are doing as well as yourself. I always say to look for what’s not there: find and fill a need. Of course, if you’re in touch with your own individuality this won’t be very hard to do.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Subtitle: A double underrepresented group gets represented.
LATISM
In an effort to represent a double underrepresented group (women + Latina) LATISM, gives us the very first 2010 Bloguera survey. Here’s some key findings courtesy of WiredLatinos:
- Young:The largest group of respondents is between 30 and 39
- Mothers: 83% has between 2 and 4 kids
- Heads of household: 70% is either single, divorced or separated
- Yearly Earnings: Of the respondents, 46.5% reports earnings of $80,000 – 89,000 a year, closely followed by 44% who earn $30,000 to $39,000 a year. Less than 3% reported earnings of $100,000 or more
- Committed:
- 75% blog two or more times a week
- 77% have invested in their own domain
- 98% plus are active in social media
- A surprising 72% blog primarily in English
- 62.7% blog about Parenting, followed closely by Latino issues [54.4%]. Other popular topics included Heritage/Culture, Cooking/Recipes, Beauty/Fashion, Art, Technology and politics
- While 37% of Latinas blog mostly about their ethnicity, most of them seldom or ever focus on this factor
- Most feel being a Latina has helped them find sponsorships and readers and readers, but in general feel they get less opportunities compared to non-Latinas
- Mobile Usage:
- 81% use their cell phones to tweet
- 90% use their cellphones for FaceBook
- 93% use apps
You can view/download the full version here: LATISM Latina Blogger Survey.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Subtitle: What makes you unique?
People approach developing what makes them different (Your Personal Brand) in two ways: they look at what others are doing and modify it, or they stumble on an idea that nobody is doing, and hope to be successful. On the surface neither of these two techniques are necessarily wrong however, they are external ways of looking at things.
You cannot learn how to be unique. You already are unique – there is no one else like you – you must find that uniqueness within and bring it out.
I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty.
You don’t grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house…
-Kabir
How much better would it be to bring forth your individuality, define, nourish, and hone it into a magnificent blade displayed for all to see, and use that tool to carve and hack out your success? Isn’t that why you wish to be unique after all – to be successful?
A successful person is not necessarily one who has a great business, or has a lot of money, or is popular, etc. What good are those if you are unhappy? Success is the mastery of oneself, conquering one’s fears – then you’ll be happy. Isn’t that what you really want – to be happy?
Popularity: 14% [?]
Subtitle: Habla Espanol?
Confession: Despite that I’ve been working within Latino social circles for many years, I am not fluent in the Spanish language. I DO have a working knowledge however…
In an effort to improve my Spanish I’m taking time to study over the the summer in preparation for a vacation and to broaden my reach on and offline as well…also, my daughter’s language skills are developing rapidly, and I want to communicate with her in both English and Spanish as she grows.
I place my self as an advanced beginner or at the intermediate level. What I’m doing is using online podcasts, social media sites, and books as well as my wife 
to practice. So for this month, and next I’ll be less active online as I dedicate more time to this goal as well as some others.
Popularity: 38% [?]
A noticeable disappointing practice (arguable), is the Google news search feature for latino social media: 90% of it is coverage of business and politics…not much of what YOU are doing in social media as individuals.
I like what Cafe Media is doing…there is much more of a cultural vibe to what they report on. Also, this is why such organizations such as LATISM is important – it’s by individuals for individuals.
…holiday weekend, light to no posting.
Popularity: 32% [?]
I’m not sure if I’ve ever posted the reason I made the transition from a Latino politics blogger to an active social media advocate within the Latino social media. So here we go…
My original blog – LatinoPundit – served a purpose to fill a void of the lack of Latino bloggers. I wanted to bring Latinos into mainstream discussions about politics and society, and also raise awareness of Latino subject matter. That was done for over a period of 5 years. Nowadays, you can find Latino blogs on a plethora of topics. With that purpose now filled, there was no reason to continue with the Latino Pundit blog.
With the knowledge that the Latino population is growing, I knew that Latinos would be more closely examined. And who else, but big businesses would have an interest? So with social media growing as well as the Latino population, it only made perfect sense that marketers would begin to enter this area.
I’ve had 5 years of experience online interacting and community building before social media became trendy…and from this advantage , I knew that I’d be ahead of any marketer without this type of experience. Thus I entered the Hispanic marketing world and rebranded my self as such.
One significant contribution to the Latino community was the national community feature for Latinos In Social Media (now called LATISM), building off the idea AnaRC had from her tweet “Where are all the Latinos on Twitter,” and the directory of Latino professionals. Call it being at the right place at the right time, because if I didn’t see Ana’s tweet, LATISM probably would of not happened. Thanks to all those involved with LATISM, the very first Latino based social media seminars took place in NY, then FL and DC followed…a fourth and what looks to be the largest yet is taking place this September. (If you can, catch LATISM in action via tonight’s Twitter party.)
My continued purpose in social media is to contribute to Latinos and social media as a whole from this blog to continuing projects that serve the greater community.
Popularity: 50% [?]
I had the pleasure of meeting Manny Ruiz earlier this year. From my first impression he seemed to be a stand-up guy, savvy business owner and a genuine family man. Nothing Manny has done since has altered my opinion…actually the more he does the more he confirms my initial read on him.
Manny successfully launched one of the largest Hispanic PR/Social media conferences and has a respectable blog. His recent endeavor is PapiBlogger:
PapiBlogger is the nation’s first bilingual web site devoted to showcasing creative parenting tricks for fathers and mothers. Together with its popular Facebook fan page www.Facebook.com/papiblogger and its Twitter page www.Twitter.com/papiblogger, the bilingual blog serves as a forum for parents to share creative parenting ideas for children ages infant to young adult.
He is currently documenting his family road trip. Go check him out.
Popularity: 45% [?]
My friend and colleague Kety Esquivel, wrote up a great post on The Huffington Post:
For the last two years I have had the distinct honor and priviledge to be a panelist at SXSWi. Unfortunately, I have been one of the only Latino panelists and potentially the only Latina panelist….On the conference circuit, the response that I get often for this dearth of Latino and Latina panelists is: we don’t have any other Latino/Latina panelists because there is no one else out there. My experience has been that many of the conference organizers blame the digital divide.
Popularity: 46% [?]
Subtitle: Laitnos in social media kicking butt in LatAm.
Latinos from both sides of the American hemisphere are devouring social media. Check out the latest bullish graphs and read on…
Mas: You can find them on Twitter by following #latism #latam #latino #hispanic
Popularity: 43% [?]
Subtitle: Tech Challenges
I’ve had some tech challenges recently:
- Blog was not posting – fixed
- Hootsuite application on Blackberry not connecting and draining battery – not fixed.
- Trouble with obtaining an account password – not fixed.
While these are not catastrophic, they are annoying and are causing an inconvenience to posting and updating. Don’t you love technology?
Popularity: 36% [?]
